Overview

This is a Shaman Control deck that utilizes Ancestral Spirit in order to do some strong combos with your big minions. I like to call this archetype "Revive" Control cause of this card. It uses a lot of removal in the early game as well as taunt in the mid/late game and it's meant to counter minion based aggro and midrange decks but it also has a good match-up against late game decks.

Early Game

At the early game you need your removal at your hand in order to not fall behind and take a lot of damage,mulligan can help you achieve that (Mulligan: Everything that is ≤ 4 mana stays in your hand, whereas Mana Tide Totem depends on what are you facing). It's important to have a diversity of removal and not 2 Forked Lightnings for example.

Mid Game

This stage of the game is really tricky and requires thoughtful playing because you might do some mistakes since you have to decide if you want to play removal or minions as well as try not to play some of your combo pieces without baiting first (Read below for Baiting) and you also have Overload to mess you up. I won't write about the Late Game since the only thing you do is play your big minions and combo some of them with Ancestral Spirit after you've baited your opponent.

Overload

This is the part where I explain to you how to play around the overload mechanic. Overload is one of the strongest mechanics in the game since it lets you play big minions earlier, with a drawback though. This mechanic requires you to have a game plan and be a couple of turns ahead, just like chess. For example, if you want to The Coin + Sen'jin Shieldmasta on turn 3 and you have to kill a Faerie Dragon on turn 2 and you have to decide between a Rockbiter Weapon and a Stormforged Axe you have to choose between game plan and efficiency since Rockbiter Weapon will let you The Coin + Sen'jin Shieldmasta but it won't be as efficient as Stormforged Axe which means that besides a game plan you must be good at decision making.

Baiting & Combos

Baiting is by far the most important thing if you want to be successful with this deck and do your combos. Now, let's see what our possible combos are.

Comments

Im sorry, but this deck is an absolute garbage. I lost to some legendary shaman using this deck like 2 months ago, when i was rank 1 and it really impressed me, so i was pretty excited when i ran into it here. That was 2 months ago though, hs doesnt stand on the same spot. By the turn 4 when you drop a shieldmaster, the game is already lost. two ironbeak owls are enough in any deck to easily beat this one, needless to speak about big game hunter black knight and simply damage buffs.You will get your ass handed to you by hunters, rogues, warlocks and druids alike all the time. This is probably a good deck vs warrior, mage and priest, but there arent any mages or priests. Paladins all run big game hunters aldor peacekeepers kodos etc. So i dont recommend anyone using this deck if your goal is ranking up.

Sorry to hear that, maybe you should read the Bait (you have like 6 baits if not more depending on your pressure) section to learn more about to how to play with this deck cause it's really confusing some times. I'm also playing this deck for almost 2 months with no problems though. Take care.

Also, after playing a few games, Rag and Ysera seem to work well with this deck. Ragnoros just fits really well into this deck with the late game damage and control. Put Ancestral Spirit on him and he becomes and 8/8 charge again when he revives. Ysera also has a combo like this, if you get the Nightmare card draw from her, chuck Ancestral Spirit and Nightmare on her and you get a nice 9 damage Ysera that still gets the card draw because she doesn't die after you end the turn. And she come back to life with Spirit. Maybe it might be some good combos to think about. :)

I love these kind of decks, they are always interesting to try and experiment with. I am definitely going to try this out and see how it works in the meta. Due to me only owning x1 Earth Elemental and no Bloodmage Thalnos, I chucked in Ragnaros and Ysera. Might think about some better cards to put in than Ysera, but just a good card if faced against a Priest I guess. Very good deck idea though, only 1 card that I might consider swapping is the Loot Hoarder for an Argent Squire, just because it can trade really well in the early game, and if they can only ping the shield and play a 3 or 4 health minion, Rockbiter onto it and get some good value, only a thought though. :)

About Loot Hoarder, I'm used to have ~5+ draw power in the deck and I need something to play early game besides Totems and Loot Hoarder can be a really good disruptor, example: You play Loot Hoarder on turn 3, on turn 4 the enemy, let's say Rogue, has only a Faerie Dragon on the board but he wanted to rush you down with Dark Iron Dwarf and hit you for 5 damage but if he does that and not use hero power he's going to lose his Faerie Dragon next turn, so you mess with his game plan at that moment and gain some advantage (he's also good behind a taunt minion as well).

I almost 100% agree with your thoughts on Loot Hoarder, but this is just what I think. Say you are put in the same situation, turn 1 either if you go first or second, you can play the 1/1 with divine shield. Now against the Rogue, turn 2 they can either hero power to take down the shield and waste the turn basically, or if she want to kill the Argent Squire, it would require a Backstab + Hero power. Soo much more efficiency out of a 1 drop. Now lets say that the Rogue plays Faerie Dragon turn 2, If you have Rockbiter in your hand, that just gets rid of that and you still have the 1/1 on the board, but in the case of no Rockbiter this could be a bit of a bad situation, unless you have Stormforged Axe. Lately in the current meta, I have been seeing less Faerie Dragons and this situation is rarely stumbled across, but that's what Forked Lightning is for I guess, Let them play another minion then it is dead, Even in the case of Razorfen Hunter, Imps Master or Murlock Tidehunter, that's what the Argent Squire could be useful for. I'll give it a bit more testing and see how much better it works out. :)